Let's Talk About Your 2024 Strategy + Execution Plan

It’s the most wonderful time of the year, but not what you are thinking! This is the time of year when wealth management firms, advisory businesses, and fintech/wealthtechs are finishing up their strategy + execution plans for the new year and thinking through the best way to share and communicate their plans to their employees. This month and early next month are the best opportunities leaders have all year to get their people excited about what the future looks like, get alignment on what needs to be done, and share how employees can be a part of it. But, at many of these firms, this isn’t happening.

In my consulting business, I have had the opportunity this year to meet with hundreds of wealth management firms, advisory practices, and fintechs/wealthtechs. The truth is that a lot of them don’t have a strategy + execution plan, and in most of those cases, they don’t even know where to start putting one together. In some cases, firms have a “strategic plan”, but it’s really a sales plan, a marketing plan, or a product roadmap. All of these things are components of a strategy + execution plan, but they are not the entirety of the plan.

The list is much longer, but here are a few of the more notable impacts of not having a strategy + execution plan:

1. Accidental Growth: Maybe the firm grows, but there is not a focused and disciplined plan towards achieving that growth. There is a lot written about the lack of organic growth in wealth management and specifically in advisory businesses, but how can we expect organic growth of say 10% or more if they don’t have a plan to get there? Maybe the organic growth problem is a direct result of the firms not having any plan on how to get there.

2. Lack of Employee Engagement: Employees want to know where the company is going in the future, how they can contribute to getting to that future state, and what the opportunities are for them to grow and advance along the way. People want to be a part of something bigger than themselves, and they want to grow along with the growth of a company. When employees are not engaged, they are at the highest risk of leaving.

3. Poor Alignment: Without a plan on where the firm is going, how it is going to get there, and who is responsible for what and when, it can lead to a lack of alignment. In larger firms, it can lead to teams working on what they think are the most important priorities or projects versus what is really needed. It’s hard to get everyone rowing in the same direction without a firm-level plan.

In the coming days, I’m going to share some thoughts on how firms can get organized around their strategy + execution plan for 2024, if they haven’t already. There is still time, but the clock is ticking. Please feel free to reach out if you have any questions or if you want to get a glimpse into what a well-designed strategy + execution plan looks like. Thank you!

Marc R. Butler Marc Butler Wealth Management GPT Ronald Fiske Michelle Feinstein April Rudin Susan Theder BRIAN HARTMANN, CFP® Alexander Petsis, CFP® ChSNC® Abby S. Chris Zuczek John J. Brett Larry Roth CPA, JD Jay Jumper Matt Harb Ali McCarthy, Ph.D. Thomas Kopelman Texas McCombs School of Business Paul Curcio Puja Agrawal Derek N.H. Notman, CFP® Kimberly Beck Robert Clare Nathan Berk Erinn Ford Matthew Schlueter Mitchell Bell Michael Partnow Tina Powell Tim Hodge Kirk Hulett Tara (Eirich) McCarten Tara Garvin Clark Keith Lanton Kelly Waltrich Sheryl O'Connor Nick Bernardo, CFP®